Month: September 2016

Your LinkedIn Summary – Your Best Weapon

Working on your LinkedIn profile can be quite overwhelming at times, there’s just so many different elements you can add to it which can have different (and mostly positive) effects to it.

But, the one that people should really give care and attention to is the LinkedIn summary section. This is a part of your profile that is really going to help your LinkedIn ranking and get you profile views!

So whether you’re brand new to LinkedIn, or just updating your profile and need some new ideas, here are some tips to help you out.

Don’t Leave It Blank – Never, ever leave the summary section blank! Unless you want the reader to see your work experience first, then get something in there. Give your profile an introduction and tell the reader about yourself.

Save That Space – Ensure that you fill your summary with the correct words and not just a load of generic phrases that a Recruiter has seen a thousand times over. These words and phrases aren’t going to do a thing for your profile and certainly isn’t going to make you stand out from the crowd. Use your summary to showcase your impressive skills and achievements, not to tell the reader that you’re an “enthusiastic team player” with “remarkable typing skills”.

That being said, you should fill it with some words to excite the reader and keep them on your profile, just make sure you’re choosing the right ones.

Tidy It Up – Space it out with paragraphs, headers / sub-headers and links! Think about it, would you enjoy reading through an unformatted 2000 character block of text?

Sell Yourself – Just as you would with your CV introduction, sell yourself to the Recruiter / Hiring Manager reading. Tell them a story, share your achievements, make it interesting and engaging! The summary is your opportunity to grab their attention and get them interested in you, don’t mess it up.

Keywords – I’ve discussed this topic quite a few times, and it’s certainly something you can’t afford to ignore. The best keywords for your profile are going to be things like skills and tools that you’ve used in the past, for example:

“I’m a very experienced Mechanical Design Engineer, who has worked extensively on AutoCAD Inventor and Solidworks Visualize Professional. I also have skills in PLC programming, automotive engineering, powertrain design.”

Don’t overfill this section with keywords though, that will become obvious very quickly if you have and will most likely turn the reader away.

Making use of these tips will result in a much more successful and attractive profile, which will lead to more opportunities for your career!